Page 66 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

“Your cousin,” he said, between his teeth, “is a fucked up piece of work.”

I shook away my discomfort. “Let’s just get whatever the hell we’re here for and get out.”

I started walking into the thick of the party, but Raihn grabbed my arm.

“Where are you going?”

I yanked away from his grip. “Getting some information out of her before she passes out.”

I tried to pull away from his grip, but he tugged me closer.

“Alone?”

What the hell kind of a question was that? I expected my face to earn the usual chuckle and teasing remark, but he remained serious.

“What about these?”

His fingertips ran over the curve of my shoulder. Goosebumps rose on my skin, a chill trailing his touch. Then a twinge of pain, as he brushed the still-bleeding, half-moon marks Evelaena had left behind.

It was so shockingly soft that my rebuke tangled on my tongue. It took me a moment too long to say, “It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.”

“Nothing I can’t handle. I’m used to being hated.”

“No. You’re used to being dismissed. Being hated is infinitely more dangerous.”

I pulled my arm away, and this time, he let me go. “I won the Kejari, Raihn. I can handle her.”

Raihn gave me a half smile. “Technically,Iwon the Kejari, actually,” he said, and didn’t move, but he also didn’t take his eyes off me.

* * *

Evelaena was already very,very drunk. When I approached her, she released the hands of her child companion and held hers out to me, instead.

I genuinely could not bring myself to take her hands, but I let her drape them over my shoulders.

“Cousin, I amsohappy you have finally come to visit me,” she slurred. “It does get so very lonely here.”

Not that lonely, if she’d Turned an army of children to keep her company.

She swayed a little closer, and I watched her nostrils flare with the movement. She had been gorging herself all night—there was no way she was hungry, but human blood was human blood.

I stepped away from her grasp, looping her arm through mine and holding it firmly, so that she couldn’t get any closer.

“Show me my father’s possessions,” I said. “I always wanted to see where he grew up.”

I wondered if the words sounded as unconvincingly sickly saccharine as they felt coming out of my mouth. If they did, Evelaena was too drunk to notice.

“Of course! Oh, of course, of course! Come, come!” she crooned, and stumbled with me down the hall.

I didn’t look back, but I felt Raihn’s gaze following me the whole way down the hall.

21

ORAYA

“Not much still exists,” Evelaena slurred as she led me down dark, crumbling hallways. There were almost no torches, and my human sight struggled to avoid the uneven tiles and cracks in the floor—coupled with the fact that an extremely drunk Evelaena had attached herself to me, it took a lot of concentration just to keep myself putting one foot in front of the other.

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